Trumping at Windmills

Donald J Quixote to the Rescue

Targeting windmills (they are called wind turbines) that produce electricity from the wind that has been blowing since the beginning of time, seems rather misguided, based on it being a rather reliable long-term source of free kinetic energy.

So the question for any “successful businessman”, why would one turn away from something free like the wind, once the infrastructure is in place (whether subsidized or not subsidized)?

So why is Donald Trump “tilting at windmills”?

 The expression ‘tilting at windmills’ derives from Cervantes’  novel character Don Quixote – first published in 1604, under the title The Ingenious Knight of La Mancha. The novel recounts the exploits of the would-be knight Don Quixote who proposes to fight injustice through chivalry with his loyal servant Sancho Panza.

The novel enables the adjective quixotic (striving for visionary ideals), and the eponymous hero imagines himself to be fighting giants when he attacks windmills.  These days ’tilting at windmills’ refers to attacks of a less militaristic nature.

According to the novel, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza came in sight of thirty or forty windmills (real windmills) that rise from that plain. And no sooner did Don Quixote see them that he said to his squire, “Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished. Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. With their spoils we shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless.” When Sancho has a clearer perception  “Take care, sir,” cried Sancho. “Those over there are not giants but windmills.

The only twist in applying this to the current tilting at windmills is that, while the Donald is also looking to be rich, the spoils are by taking money from oil companies as opposed to the wind energy power companies who might not be as generous as “dirty oil money”.  So the best interests for the Donald are in lining his pockets from oil companies than other innovative energy corporations who have taken the initiative to produce advanced technologies for alternative energy, taking advantage of the wind (and sun) across the natural plains of the USA and the farm land available that can still be farmed with crops under the “giants.”

 And for all his negative comments on windmills (read wind turbines) based on the cost of wind power, whales, birds, life cycle, blade recycling, origin of manufacturing and noise, most of Trump’s negative commentary is not accurate. (Tilting at windmills? Trump’s claims about turbines fact-checked by The Guardian) So Trump, like Don Quixote, is mistaken in his opponent, mistaking windmills for wind turbines and fighting an endless energy source from a “giant.” Maybe the real issue is that he can see them from a golf course in Scotland.

 Credit to Phrase Finder